1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic performance apparatus that supplies performance data indicating a music piece to a tone generating circuit with the progression of the music piece for reproducing the music piece, and to a computer program and a method applied to this apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, it has been known that performance data corresponding to each of plural music pieces is sequentially supplied to a tone generating circuit to continuously reproduce plural music pieces. In an apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. SHO59-113490, performance data corresponding to a first music piece, of the continuous first and second music pieces, is supplied to a first tone generating circuit to reproduce the first music piece, and a tone signal generated at the end section of the first music piece is faded out. Then, performance data corresponding to the second music piece is started to be supplied to a second tone generating circuit from the start of the fade-out to reproduce the second music piece, and a tone signal generated at the beginning section of the second music piece is faded in, whereby the first and second tone signals are cross-faded to perform a continuous reproduction. Further, Japanese Patent No. 3464290 discloses that MIDI data composing the performance data of the first and second music pieces is sequentially supplied to a tone generating circuit, wherein the first and second music pieces are reproduced as cross-faded when the first and second music pieces are changed over.
However, the former conventional technique entails a problem that two tone generating circuit systems, each being independent, are required in order to reproduce the first and second music pieces as cross-faded. Further, the latter conventional technique only discloses that the MIDI data relating to the first and second music pieces is outputted to the tone generating circuit and cross-faded. Therefore, in case where the MIDI data relating to the first and second music pieces designates the same tone generating channel, only the tone signal corresponding to the MIDI data relating to the first or second music piece that is read out earlier is generated, thereby entailing a problem that the cross fade upon the changeover of the reproduction of the first and second music pieces is unnatural or impossible.